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Posts Tagged ‘Nikon’

This cruise ship was literally more than 20 miles away when I captured it going past where the sun was totally behind it and clouds. The Nikon D300 handheld photo at 300/450mm eq. zoom shows the magic even of “dull” sunsets over Tampa Bay, seen from my blessed home at Apollo Beach. The trees to the left are straight across from my home but a long drive to get to at a popular state park, at the edge of the peninsula there.

There are so many different vantage points and so many different lighting conditions to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. I have always only managed to catch a quick shot now and then during usually hurried short trips there for the last 26 years. This one was a particular stunning sight as the golden pink dusk settled in over the dark silhouette of the mountains and the new moon was sharply visible in the sky as bright as the headlights of drivers making their way across the bridge. As the monumental structures bridged the cities across the bay, the moon and dusk bridged the ending day and coming night.

I am thrilled when I see light cloud patterns across the low horizon at sunset time because they make for the most stunning sunset pictures.

Either a narrow dark band that splits the sky into bands of bright yellow, dark red and orange; or these almost paintbrush like light strokes of semi-opaque cloud that the sun’s light is able to pass through and paint over the edges in golden and red tones.

This SOOC (straight out of camera) Nikon D300 image was labeled with my name in Photoshop and straightened 0.4 degrees in iPhoto. I did not tweak any color or shade, not even to make the boat slicing through the water more visible.

This was just another of those stunning sunsets that make me bow my head in gratitude and amazement to God.

As I Bow My Head To God, For All That He Blessed Me With, And Even The Unanswered Prayers For What Was Not Meant To Be Despite My Best Efforts, For Only He Knows How Incredibly He Will Make My Dreams Come True Beyond My Own Imagination.

All I Can Do Is Fall On My Knees In Thanks For What He Already Blessed Me With, And For The Gifts Of Life, Health, Love, Family, Joy, Success And Happiness He Has In Store For Me. Amen!

Take a setting sun even on a cloudy and darkening day which is grudgingly coming to an end.

Add some layers of clouds meandering about their short-lived hours of existence, as a bird flies by to nest for the night.

Mix in a boat with sunset worshippers caught in silhouette, as I watch from my blessed home, and you get another stunning magical moment, another memory, another blessing to lower my head in gratitude for, as I mutter my eternal thanks to God.

As the cold air starts to creep in from the North, the sun starts to slide to set more over the water than land on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. The moisture squeezed out of the air also makes for crisper cooler air to breathe in but also for sharper photographs. Dusk scene at my blessed home beach in NY, taken with my new WindowsPhone Lumia 1020.

SOOC Image Straight Out Of Camera!! NO editing, tweaking, or color processing of ANY kind. Only framed & titled in Photoshop..

There were few who were not impacted by the (few) ups and (many) downs of the last few years.

As 2012 drew to a close, by the grace of God, it appeared that the number of ups was up, the number of downs counting down, like the hours, and minutes, to the end of the year.

Though the global economy, the nation, and my own personal challenges had not fully come back from the edge of the (fiscal) cliffs, there was a sense of optimism I felt like a soft but unsure sigh of relief the world wanted to let out.

Even though 2012 had proven to be a year of uncertainty initially, for the most part it seemed to be the year that also brought a turnaround, in the economy, in hope, in life, and in love. But, all in all, poor 2012 was lumped more with the terrible years of 2009-2011 that brought so much devastation and sorrow to so many.

It was then so poetically ironic to take this picture, with a very special someone coming into my life, as many new goals, destinations, and dreams also started coming back into view, as we stood, in the freezing cold wind at Montauk (meaning “The End” in native American languages, at the Eastern tip of Long Island and New York), as the cold day, and a warming but still cold year started to disappear from view….

It was the beginning (of beautiful new times) and the beginning of The End (Of Day At) The End (Of 2012 At Montauk) The End !

Happy New Year, my friends, and may 2013 bring good fortune, love, life, health, prosperity and peace to all. Amen.

We can go through decades of life and the realize how quickly the days of our lives flew by. I wonder if the sun, hurtling on its own one-way ticket to burning out in the heavens one day, wonders how quickly its own billions of years of existence have flown by.

The last few weeks, months, even the year, have been a blur… of downs and ups, of sorrows and joys, despair and hope, but above all, a certain knowledge of how blessed this amazing life has been, and seeing dreams start turning to reality in front of my eyes.

An irony of these few weeks has been the destruction of the boardwalk to my beach here on Long Island, due to hurricane Sandy. The debris on the alternate path kept me from visiting the beach as much as before, so, I did not catch as many sunsets at the beach as before. Last night, well, just 5 PM EST really, I braved the really cold wind, and walking over debris fields, fallen tree trunks and treacherous piles of wood, to step back onto my home beach that I have been blessed to live at for nearly 20 years.

And, I saw the ironic imagery of how the setting sun’s burning orb colors were exactly touching the tip of the bridge 17 miles away that the Nikon D300 and Nikkor 300mm (450mm eq) lens caught even with my trembling cold hands.

The Bridge To The Sun, which is the bridge to what makes our lives possible on earth, which are the bridge from when we are born to when our sun sets, and we, once born from stars, burn out in the cosmic winds leaving behind, we hope, shining images in the memories of those who love us, even better replicas of us in those whom we give birth to, and our deeds, and how we made people feel, and how we lived, laughed and loved to our last breaths…..

Singer Island, Florida, is a place I fell in love with when I made it my second home in America in 2003.

One of the nearby places I loved going with special people in life has been Palm Beach, the ritzy but understated, island home-ground and playground of the rich and (many choosing NOT to be) famous. In particular, Worth Avenue is a great place to hang out, where old money meets new glitz. Fancy stores of the world’s most posh brands stand next to understated elegant dining. Expensive cars that seem to flash irritatingly in Miami appear to be quietly parked along the street as their owners quietly and without pretense walk the sidewalks.

On the East end of Worth Avenue, a maor renovation was done recently, which included the building of this clock tower. Its architecture has elicited diverse comments, but the view from inside and around it is wonderful.

My last trip here recently was on a stormy night, and the rain was falling on me as I stood by the roadside, taking advantage of low traffic at that dusk hour, when the sky was still bright but the lights were turning on, when the clouds were menacing, but the sea was welcoming.

As I stood there, I realized, as the seconds of our lives go by, standing under a Clock Tower, Sea Time and distance merging at the horizon, you see time through a portal, the image merging time gone by and the endless promise of a beautiful life still ahead, despite the storms on the horizon.

Handheld photo captured with my spare Nikon (pocket sized 16MP Coolpix 6200 ISO1600, f/3.2 at half-second 4.5mm), as I did not want to risk damaging the D300 in the rain.

I am blessed to live on the water, looking at glorious silky satin smooth silver blue waters in the morning and luscious, brilliant sunsets and dusks, from all the windows of my blessed home on Long Island, New York.

The beach my home is on also gives me magical moments to savor, to make memories in, and to photograph sunsets.

But, sometimes the stunning imagery lies to the side of the house, if I walk out the ftont door and head to my boat slip or beach, the setting sun behind the marina to the side makes for interesting combinations, of sun, clouds, and sailboat masts.

This latest photo I captured at the side of the home was of the Sun sliding down behind the sailboat while the clouds seem like wave passing in front of the… Sun. At Half Mast. Literally!

I hope you enjoy this totally unedited SOOC photo. Click to see larger and on black.